And I Love Her - a classic from the Beatles 1964 album A Hard Day's Night

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And I Love Her - a classic from the Beatles 1964 album A Hard Day's Night - I've loved for 60 years.

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Monday evening jazz session with Chris, and i'm so grateful to Chris for playing one of my very favorite Beatles songs. It's at the top of my favorites in our songlist. Growing up in the 60s, we heard them on the radio, we saw their films, and the Beatles were our standard. Now, 60 years later, here's the story of this gem from Wiki:
" And I Love Her" is a song recorded by English rock band the Beatles, written primarily by Paul McCartney and credited to the Lennon-McCartney partnership. It is the fifth track of their third UK album A Hard Day's Night and was released 20 July 1964, along with "If I Fell", as a single release by Capitol Records in the United States, reaching No. 12 on the Billboard Hot 100.
The Beatles performed "And I Love Her" just once outside EMI Studios; on 14 July 1964 they played it for an edition of the BBC's Top Gear radio show, which was broadcast two days later.[1] "And I Love Her" has been covered by a variety of artists, including Esther Phillips, Kurt Cobain and Santo & Johnny.
A majority of the composition shifts back and forth between the key of E and its relative minor C♯m. It also changes keys altogether just before the solo, to F. The final chord is a D major. This technique of ending is known as Picardy third resolution.[2]
McCartney called "And I Love Her" "the first ballad I impressed myself with". Lennon called it McCartney's "first 'Yesterday'".[3] Though the song was written mainly by McCartney, John Lennon claimed in an interview with Playboy that his major contribution was the middle eight section ("A love like ours/Could never die/As long as I/Have you near me").[4]
Beatles publisher Dick James lends support to this claim, saying that the middle eight was added during recording at the suggestion of producer George Martin (an early take of the song was released on Anthology 1 in 1995, and the middle eight had not yet been added). According to James, Lennon called for a break and "within half an hour [Lennon and McCartney] wrote a very constructive middle to a very commercial song."[5] McCartney, on the other hand, maintains that "the middle eight is mine. I wrote this on my own. I would say that John probably helped with the middle eight, but he can't say 'It's mine'."[5] McCartney has credited George Harrison with composing the signature guitar riff, saying it "made a stunning difference to the song".[6]
"The 'And' in the title was an important thing - 'And I Love Her,' it came right out of left field, you were right up to speed the minute you heard it," McCartney said. "The title comes in the second verse and it doesn't repeat. You would often go to town on the title, but this was almost an aside: 'Oh ... and I love you.'"[3]
Cash Box described the song as an "extremely pretty, soft beat cha cha opus" that the Beatles "wax in soft and tender fashion."[7]
Recording
Recorded by the Beatles over three days, in Abbey Road Studio Two, the sessions were produced by George Martin and engineered by Norman Smith. The second engineer was Richard Langham.[8]
Day 1
Work began at 2:30pm on Tuesday 25 February 1964 (George Harrison's 21st birthday) for the first day of the sessions for the Hard Day's Night soundtrack and the accompanying album. Two takes were recorded. Take 1 was incomplete, but Take 2 was complete. However, the Beatles decided a lighter touch was required. Take 2 was eventually released on Anthology 1 in 1995.[9] This version was missing the middle-eight.
Instrumentation on this session was[10]
Paul McCartney - lead vocal, 1963 Höfner 500/1 bass guitar through Vox AC-100 bass amp.
John Lennon - 1964 Rickenbacker 325 electric guitar through Vox AC-50 guitar amp
George Harrison - 1964 Rickenbacker 360-12, 12 string electric guitar through Vox AC-50 guitar amp
Ringo Starr - Ludwig drum kit
Day 2
The following day, Wednesday 26 February, a further 17 takes (Takes 3-19) were made in a session lasting from 7:00-10:00pm. Although Starr swapped his drums for bongos and claves halfway through the session, they were still not happy. It was during this session that they stopped for a tea break and to write the middle eight. A brief fragment of Take 11 can be heard in the closing credits of Episode 8 of Anthology, where Paul sings "And if you saw my love, I'd love her [too]..." before the take breaks down.[11]
Instrumentation on both this session and Day 3 was[10]
Paul McCartney - lead vocal, 1963 Höfner 500/1 bass guitar through Vox AC-100 bass amp
John Lennon - Harrison's 1962 Gibson J-160E acoustic-electric guitar through Vox AC-50 guitar amp
George Harrison - 1964 José Ramírez Guitarra de Estudio classical guitar
Ringo Starr - Ludwig drum kit, switching to bongos and claves
Day 3
An additional two takes (Takes 20 and 21) were recorded on the morning of Thursday 27 February, beginning at 10:00am. Take 20 saw the basic track laid down, while Take 21 was an overdub of McCartney's double-tracked lead vocal and Starr's claves.